Google Ads for Plumbers: Getting More Local Clients

Whether you’re starting out or scaling your business, Google Ads is great for your business. You can find people in your area that are actively looking for your services.

To get the most out of your presence on Google, there are a few basic initiatives you should consider:

• Setting Up & Maintaining a Google My Business (GMB) Account 
• Establishing Your Presence on Local Service Ads (LSAs)
• Establishing Your Presence on Google Search Ads

Each of these initiatives is a fantastic opportunity to get more clients. Creating and managing these different initiatives can be overwhelming. That’s why we want to create this article to help you get started.

In this article, we will review:

• What is Google Ads?
• Why is Google Ads Great for Plumbers?
• How to Get Started
• Expert Advice to Get More Clients

What is Google Ads?

You’ve probably heard about Google already and probably use it on a daily basis. What you might not know is that you have a variety of opportunities to advertise to people on Google. Google Ads for plumbers is very useful for a very basic reason.

Search is Intent – Google is one of the few places you can find customers actively searching for your plumbing services.

You might be asking….why is that?

When someone is searching for a “plumber near me” or to “fix a leaky pipe”, they clearly want to find a plumber. 

Google Ads for plumbers allows you to show an ad in the search results for those terms. Then if people choose to click on your ad and call you, more likely than not, they will do business with you. That’s because they could need something urgently repaired or they did their research and narrowed it down to you and a couple of other options.

Since the market is so competitive, your competition is likely to get a new client over you. Just because they showed up in the search results when that prospective client needed help.

Another thing to consider with Google Ads (generally speaking) is that advertising gets you to the top of the search results. The image above is a good example of this. 

The first row of results are Local Service Ads (LSAs) and the next two results are search ads. 

For terms outside of your brand name, this is a common theme in the plumbing industry. A lot of plumbers already use Google Ads to get new business which is why it can be so competitive. This gets into why you should use Google Ads.

Why is Google Ads Great for Plumbers?

There are quite a few benefits to Google Ads for plumbers. Here they are below to keep it simple:

• Search is intent – see the prior section

• People are urgently looking for some services – if they have a leaky pipe, they probably don’t want to fix it themselves and want a good plumber ASAP.

• Google My Business – is 100% free and allows you to showcase your reviews. You can also let people contact you directly if they’re searching for you. It’s a great way to get new business and box out competitors that could be bidding on your brand.

• Local Service Ads – allow you to show up in Google when people are looking for services you provide in your service area. Best of all, you only pay for leads (calls & messages). We have a detailed article on the topic if you’re interested in learning more. We are also happy to help you set up and manage your account too.

• Google Search Ads – you can pick the keywords you want to show up on and you only pay for clicks. That means you can get a presence with potential customers for free and only pay when they try to call you or visit your website.

How to Get Started on Google

If you already have a GMB account, LSA account, and campaigns on Google Search….congrats! Feel free to go to the next section.

Here’s the setup to help you get started with each of these accounts. If you want an expert to set this up for you, then please feel free to book a free consultation.

Google My Business (GMB)

1. Sign into your Google Account or create one (a gmail account) – make sure you use your business email address.
2. Go to Create a Profile
3. Enter the name of your business. You might find your business from the list of suggested businesses as well. It’s important to make sure someone didn’t already set this account up for you in the past.
4. Search for your business category.
5. Choose whether you have a location customers can visit. If you do, you may be asked to verify your business address.
6. Enter your service area – you can add up to 20 different service areas based upon the cities, postal codes, or other areas you serve.
7. Enter a phone number and website URL
8. Besides verifying your business, you should be finished!

Local Service Ads (LSA)

Our article on this topic has detailed setups for setting up your account.

Google Ads

1. Go to the Google Ads homepage
2. Click Start Now
3. From there you will be prompted to create a new account.
4. We recommend choosing Google Ads account vs Smart Campaign account because you get more targeting options.
5. You’ll need to give your account name, select a country/time zone, add a payment method, and invite users (if applicable).
6. Click create account and you should be all set!

Expert Advice for Plumbers on Google Ads

There are a variety of ways you can use Google Ads to get more clients. Here’s our advice based upon our client’s past successes and learnings.

• Start with free/low cost initiatives – the best things in life are free. This is especially true getting new customers. You should use everything that is free to start with before paying for ads. After all, you could get more clients just by establishing your GMB profile. 

• Know what you’re paying for – local service ads (LSA) are a great example of this. You can pay only for calls and request a refund for lower quality calls. On Google Search, you can pick exact match terms to show up only on specific terms. This allows you to increase the quality of the search queries you show ads on to get more out of your marketing budget.

• Content is King – you should have a website that shows off your reviews, pictures of your work (ideally before/after pictures), and gives potential clients an idea of how to do business with you. 

• Make sure you can answer your calls in a timely manner – this is crucial for your success. If you don’t answer, they will call someone else and hire them instead of you. It’s that simple.

• Have a process for collecting reviews –  this will help when you show reviews on GMB, LSA, and Google Search because customers like to compare. Besides the price, customers rely heavily on the reviews to see if they should trust you.

• Start small – target exact match terms on Google Search, keep your daily budgets for ads smaller, and try to get as much out of your budget as possible. That way, you can more effectively scale to get more leads later on.

• Consider what your customers are looking for – you should know why your customers want to do business with you vs your competitors. Then make sure you show off that differentiator in your website content and on Google. Whether that’s your price, quality of service, providing a niche service, comprehensive plumbing services, and so forth. Google Ads for plumbers is only as good as your underlying business. Google can help you find potential customers but they will only become your customers if you have something to offer that stands out against the competition.

Final Thoughts

You should be in a great position to get started on Google Ads after reading this article. If you need more help or don’t have the time to manage all your accounts like most plumbers on Google Ads, we’re here for you. Book a free consultation with us today and we’ll go over how to get started on Google and how to get better results.